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It was a Friday morning in April and Sirius Black was sitting in the back of the Ancient Runes classroom, trying desperately to pay attention. Professor Babbling’s soft voice didn’t quite reach the back of the classroom, and the window was open, a cool Spring breeze carrying birdsong into the room. Sirius was pretending to look out the window, pretending that he wasn’t lost in thought about the boy next to him.
Since Sirius and Remus were the only Marauders who were taking Ancient Runes, they always sat together. Their usual desk was at the back of the room. The Marauders almost always sat in the back of the classroom. If you asked any of the other students, they’d probably laugh and say that it was because James and Sirius thought they were “too cool” to sit at the front. James and Sirius let them think that. It was better than anyone realising the truth: that Remus Lupin hated sitting anywhere without his back to the wall. Before Sirius had known about Remus’s lycanthropy, he’d spotted the scars running across his back while they were changing and noticed how he flinched in his seat whenever someone walked past or make any sudden noises behind him. He still remembered pleading with McGonagall, eleven years old, eyes shining with tears, to swap dining hall tables with the Hufflepuffs, who sat at the far right of the hall. It had worked — McGonagall had spoken to Dumbledore and Hufflepuff Head, almost-deaf Professor Hickey, and when the students returned from Christmas break that year, they found the far right table was adorned with the Gryffindor red runner with gold trim and the right-of-centre table had the yellow and black Hufflepuff stripes. If anyone noticed that the Marauders always left room for Remus on the wall-side bench, they never said anything to Sirius.
Here, in the morning sunlight of mid-Spring, Remus Lupin looked beautiful. The light shone through his mousy brown hair, making it glow gold. He was squinting slightly to see the blackboard with the sun in his eyes, his eyebrows furrowed in concentration. Sirius had become very good at watching Moony without being noticed, or Moony was very good at pretending he didn’t notice.
Babbling was a sweet fairly young woman, fresh out of teacher training, who had a surprising knack for getting the class to sit still and quiet. Maybe part of it was that James and Sirius weren’t in the class together, but it definitely wasn’t the whole of it, no matter what the other teachers liked to say. Her voice was easy to listen to, and she explained the meaning behind the runes like each one was special and equally important to her, and waxed lyrical about the old ways of life in a way that made each and every student feel like they were in the past with her. Students left her class with their hearts and heads full of tales of Olde Magick,
This morning, Babbling was explaining how the old witches discovered the art of etching runes in potions ingredients before using them. This was before the invention of wands, when magic jumped out of people’s fingers like static electricity, and they poured their magic into their runes, carving protection wards over doorways, healing spells on bed frames, and true-strike symbols into arrowheads for hunting.
It was Sirius’s favourite class. Whenever they were assigned an essay, he and Remus would spend hours in the library pouring over ancient tomes (as thick as Sirius’s head, at least) until well into the night. The librarian, Davids, wouldn’t kick them out at closing time, only because if Sirius Black was in the library, then he wasn’t gallivanting about the school causing destruction. It was better for everyone, really. Besides, he trusted Prefect Remus Lupin to stop his friend from stealing books out of the Restricted Section.
Oh, how foolish they were, all of the Hogwarts staff. None of them would ever think that Remus was the one who dragged Sirius to the Restricted Section once Davids left them alone, always looking for some extra something to help with the Marauders’ Map or whatever prank Remus was concocting in that big brain of his (yes, Remus Lupin, innocent-eyed Prefect, was the mastermind behind most of the Marauders’ most dastardly plots, even though James and Sirius would never let him take the fall for it).
Sirius wanted to kiss him most of all in the library. He was in his element there, worlds upon worlds of information at his fingertips, and he seemed to glow with excitement. He’d taught Sirius the joys of books in their second year, when he’d finally dragged him to the library. Up to that point, Sirius’s main foray into literature was the dusty Black family history books that his mother forced him to read — he knew more information about Alioth Black III and the politics of the Centaur War of 1691 than he’d ever wanted to know about anything. But Remus had pulled him into the library and showed him that books didn’t have to be full of dry racist history, that books could hold a different sort of magic within their pages. Within weeks, Sirius Black was a voracious reader. After he and James came up with their Animagus idea, Sirius had been the one who snuck into the library in the dead of night under James’s cloak to search for information, without the curious eyes of Davids or Remus watching him. Even though becoming Animagi would have been easier with Remus’s help, Sirius knew it would go one of two ways: Remus would get his hopes up and would be crushed if they failed, or Remus would try to talk them out of it. The second option had seemed more likely at the time.
It had been hard to keep such a big secret from their fellow Marauder, but Remus’s reaction had been worth it. Sirius was the first to transform in their demonstration and Remus had teared up immediately, knees going out from under him. He had fallen to the floor next to Sirius’s large fluffy form and had pulled him into those scrawny arms and cried into the fur on his neck. James transformed next and nudged Remus’s shaking shoulders with his soft black nose. Remus had glanced at him and at Peter, mid-transformation into his rat form, and had started crying even harder. He hadn’t let go of Sirius for hours, even after he’d changed back into a human.
The bells began to toll the hour and Babbling stood up from where she’d been sitting on her desk, and wished them all a lovely weekend, and “Don’t forget your essays on your Rune Diviners on Monday!”
Sirius and Remus’s essays were almost done. Sirius had chosen Alfwyn Salter, an Anglo-Saxon witch from the eighth century who, among other things, had correctly predicted the names of the first ten muggle Kings of England, from William the Conquerer onwards, in her runes. Remus had chosen Irish witch Eanair Ní Cinnéide, who had used her rune divination to predict where the Irish people would be worst hit by the Great Famine of the nineteenth century, allowing her and a group of her followers to fly or apparate to the most remote and desperate parts of the island and save thousands of lives. Sirius knew that they would probably be going to the library tonight to finish off their essays, and the thought made him feel warm all over.
Sirius looked down at his notebook as the noise in the class turned up to a roar as students started chattering amongst themselves, zipping up bags, pushing chairs in and out. There were three and a half sentences written about garlic and nettle leaves before Sirius had obviously lost himself in the beauty of Remus Lupin. Remus elbowed him gently, before he stood up. “I’ve got notes, you can copy them later.”
Sirius smiled up at him. “Where would I be without you, Moony?” He said, before realising that the joking tone he’d been going for had missed the mark completely and he sounded like a lovesick fool. Fuck, he sounded like James.
Remus, if he noticed anything odd in Sirius’s tone or demeanour, didn’t mention it. “Fast asleep in Binns’s class, probably.” His mouth quirked up at one corner and Sirius was convinced he was going to die. That was it, his heart was going to beat right out of his chest and he’d pass away, right here, in the back of the Ancient Runes classroom. Cause of death: Cute Lupin Smirk.
Remus cleared his throat. Right, Sirius had been staring, hadn’t he? He put his notebook and quill away and stood up, swinging his book bag onto one shoulder.
“Ready for Potions, my good sir?”
Remus groaned as they started towards the dungeons. “Why did I let you lot convince me to keep Potions up for NEWTS? I’m going to fail, you know. How on earth am I going to get a job after school if I’ve got my furry little problem and a failed NEWT?” He was joking, mostly, but Sirius still winced. There weren’t many places that would hire werewolves, even the ones like Remus who were lucky enough to be educated. Sirius’s plan for after school was to swindle his parents out of their money and become Remus’s sugar daddy. He’d said as much to Remus on multiple occasions, but Remus always thought he was joking.
Remus seemed to notice that his joke had fallen flat. “You don’t have to worry about me, Pads,” he said with a shrug of one broad shoulder (Remus had really filled out over the past year and, fuck, did Sirius want to bite those shoulders).
“I’ll always worry about you, Moonbeam.”
“I know.”
They weren’t joking around any more. Things were getting dangerously close to ‘real feelings’.
Then, James fucking Potter ran up behind them and tugged on Sirius’s ponytail. “Do you two realise how long it’s been since we’ve gone on a proper lash? Padfoot, are you up for coming to Hogsmeade tonight with me for a little bit of beverage acquisition?” He pushed himself between the boys and Sirius felt his heart wrench as Moony moved away, like a part of himself was going too.
A drink sounded nice. Pretending to be more sloshed than he was sounded nicer; throwing himself onto Remus, clutching his hand, smelling his neck, sitting on his lap, as Remus himself got gigglier and gigglier with every sip of firewhiskey.
But a quiet evening in the library sounded perfect. Sirius could imagine it now, just him and Remus and their essays, whispered jokes and Remus’s sarcastic comments, those exaggerated stretches that Remus did about every hour or so when he was deep in work (didn’t even notice he was doing it and always flashed Sirius a strip of pale skin with a light trail of hair leading temptingly downwards). Night would fall as the other students finished their work and left, as the oil lamps dimmed, as Davids slipped off to bed with a quick nod at the boys, and then they’d be alone, in a comfortable quiet, with only their quill scratches and parchment rustling.
“Can’t, Prongs. Remus and I have that Runes essay still.”
James scoffed. “You’re not finished that yet? Come on, you could do that tomorrow, or Sunday. If we don’t drink tonight, it’ll be another week, since we’ve Quidditch practice on Sunday morning.”
“And whose fault is that?” Sirius teased, poking James, Mr Gryffindor Quidditch Captain, Mr ‘We Need to Train at Six AM to beat Slytherin Next Month’, in the ribs.
Remus laughed and slung his arm around James’s shoulder. The two were the same height now, neither quite as tall as Sirius who had a good four inches on them both, but James hadn’t grown an inch in over a year and Remus was slowly and surely passing him out. “He’s got you there, Potter. You should have factored your partying tendencies in when planning the training schedule.”
Peter was already in the dungeon classroom when the three got there. He had, as any good Marauder would, snagged the last two tables on the right-hand row. He was in the very back, seeing as he was the best of the four at potions (well, he had to be good at something) and the only one who could stop Remus from poisoning himself or blowing something up in almost every class. James took the seat directly in front of Wormy, and Sirius paused a second at his usual seat.
Remus brushed past him and their hands touched. It was only for half a second, if even that, but Sirius’s whole body was on fire in an instant. Sirius’s eyes flashed to Remus, but the other boy didn’t seem to have even noticed. He could feel the blood rush to his face. He tore his gaze away from Remus and spotted James’s raised eyebrow.
Sirius shrugged and slumped down in the seat beside him. He hadn’t told James, hadn’t told anyone, about his feelings for Moony. He knew that if James knew, he’d tease Sirius as bad as Sirius had been teasing him about Lily for years. Which Sirius would probably deserve. But, on top of that, Sirius was certain that James would start pestering him to tell Remus how he felt. He, after all, professed his love to Lily regularly, getting shut down every single time hadn’t stopped him from trying again a few weeks later.
It wasn’t that Sirius didn’t want to tell Remus. Well, part of it was exactly that, but it was complicated. There were the Marauders to think about, the sharing-a-dorm to think about, the full moon to think about. As much as Sirius wanted to push Remus against any somewhat flat and vaguely vertical surface and snog him until their faces were numb, he knew that Remus needed his friendship more than Sirius needed Remus’s romance.
That was the difference between James and Lily and Sirius and Remus. Being friends with Remus Lupin was not a consolation prize, it was a heaven all of its own. Sirius felt more alive in Remus’s company, more capable, more worthy of good. If Remus never wanted Sirius romantically, Sirius would be there for him in every other way he could.
Slughorn swanned into the room before James could press him further, and, luckily for Sirius, they were brewing a complicated enough potion that James didn’t have the time to bring it up for the rest of the class. By the time the hour struck, Sirius was pretty sure that James had forgotten all about Sirius’s mortifying moment, or at least he’d thought twice about mentioning it.
***
After dinner, James and Peter, who had managed to recruit a few other Gryffindor sixth years into their Friday Night Drinking Shenanigans, set off for one of the Hogsmeade passages. Sirius and Remus headed to the library. Sirius was almost as excited for his own evening as James was for his.
The library was, unsurprisingly, quiet. It was a warm sort of quiet, the kind that crept into your bones and comforted you from the inside out. Remus headed straight for their usual table in the corner nearest the Restricted Section. There was a window on the wall behind where Sirius would normally sit and, in the evenings, when the sun was at just the right point in a rare blue sky, the light shone through that little window like a beacon and everything about Remus seemed to glow.
The first thing Sirius planned to do, once he became Remus’s sugar daddy, was take him somewhere sunny on a long holiday so he’d have that angelic look for two weeks or more.
After they’d sat down, pulled out all of their parchment rolls, class notes, quills and ink pots, Remus headed off into the History section to find some more books about his own chosen witch, and probably a book or two for Sirius as well, since he seemed to have a knack for finding just the right books for whatever topic was needed. Sure enough, he came back about five minutes later, almost staggering under the weight of eight hefty tomes, the top two of which he handed to Sirius after dumping them all onto the table with a satisfying thunk.
Remus was, of course, going above and beyond, which is why he needed the extra books. Most of the time, to most people, Remus was just someone who happened to have an Irish accent. But if you got him drunk, or talking about the English colonisation of Ireland over the centuries, or (Merlin forbid) both, Remus’s Irish-ness came out in full force. So, of course, in an essay where the Irish Famine that killed over a million Irish muggles featured so very prominently, Remus was probably going to fill about a foot of parchment with his (valid) criticisms of the English muggles at the time. Not that the English wizards were off the hook either, Sirius could almost hear Remus telling him. Despite Salazar Slytherin himself being an Irishman, Irish students were not accepted into Hogwarts from the years of 1412 to 1924. Even then, in 1924, it was not at the request of the Irish magic users themselves, whose pleadings for education had gone ignored for hundreds of years, but that of the French Présidente de la Magique that allowed them to rejoin the school. At the time, la Présidente de la Magique, Hélene Lagarde, was working with magical governments all over Europe, setting up agreements for students to attend the biggest magical schools in Europe, along with establishing smaller schools in other countries. Lagarde did more for European magical education in her tenure than anyone, arguably including the Hogwarts founders themselves.
Remus sat down across from Sirius, his back against the wall, as usual, and pulled the top book towards him. He heaved it open, sending a cloud of dust into the air, and Sirius could have sworn he heard the book’s spine creak. Sirius watched, trapped, enraptured, as Remus reverently ran his fingers down the edge of the page he’d opened to. He couldn’t look away. There was something about Remus in his element that lured Sirius in.
They worked in silence as the hours grew long, and the library grew dark and empty. Sirius finally, finally, finished the conclusion of his essay just after midnight and then took up his favourite pastime, dreaming about Remus Lupin.
He admired the curl of his mouse-brown hair around his ear, the left one, which had a small chunk taken out of the top. It was still a perfect ear, in his opinion. Sirius, before falling in love with Remus Lupin, would have had no idea what a perfect ear was. Oh, how uncultured he’d been. That perfect ear reminded him of waking up after a full moon, still in dog form, his shaggy head tucked into Remus’s neck while he slept off the pain of his detransformation. Remus’s scent was always strongest behind his ears. Sirius, as Padfoot, had categorically reviewed every inch of Remus’s body as discreetly as he could over the years. He had determined that, while Remus’s fingers and robes mostly smelled of ink, old books and chocolate, if Sirius wanted a hit of pure unadulterated Remus-musk, behind his ears were really the only choice. It was often hard to find an excuse to transform into his Animagus and sniff around Remus’s head, but there had to be some advantage to almost always doing the thing that people least suspect of you.
“Do I have something on my face?” Sirius realised that he’d be staring into space right in Remus’s direction.
Still half in daydream-land, he only managed a “Huh?”
“You’re staring, Padfoot. Do I have ink or something on my face?” Remus sounded a little exasperated, but mostly fond, like he was trying to train a new puppy who wouldn’t stop peeing on the doormat.
“I’m in love with you.”
No.
Fuck.
What?
“What?” Remus had heard him too, then.
Sirius was suddenly very very awake and pointedly not looking at Remus.
“I…” He tried to explain, tried to weasel his way out of it, grasping for any half-coherent thought that his mind could form. There was nothing. “I…” He tried again, hoping the right words would spring from the tip of his tongue effortlessly, as they often did when he had to lie to teachers on the spot, but nothing came.
“Is that a joke?”
Sirius almost said yes, almost jumped at the chance to take it back. But there was something about Remus’s tone. He sounded tired, wary, scared. Sirius glanced at him, hoping not to be spotted. Remus was staring right back at him, those amber eyes piercing into his own, pleading with him. Sirius held his gaze and felt his face heat up.
Suddenly, maybe because Remus was looking at him like that, the right words came to him. “I’ve never been joking less about anything in my life.”
“How long?”
“Ages.” There was no point in lying anymore. “Years. Been so long I can’t remember who I was before, you know? It’s part of who I am now.”
“Padfoot…” His name sounded like a sigh on Remus’s lips, but the soft contented exhale of the forest floor after the first long summer rain.
“I tried to get over it, at first, but I couldn’t. I figured I could just live with it, keep it secret. And I think I was doing pretty well, up until right now.”
Remus snorted. “Up until you confessed your love to me a half-asleep stupor, you mean?”
Sirius cracked a smile. Remus was joking with him. That was a good sign, right, that Sirius hadn’t irrevocably damaged their friendship? “That might have put a bit of a damper on the whole ‘secret’ part, yeah.”
A silence fell across the table and permeated through the empty library. It lasted only fifteen seconds, maybe less, before Remus inhaled sharply.
“I love you too, you know.”
“You do?”
“Yeah. Of course I do, Sirius.”
“And you, uh, you don’t mean in a friend way, right?”
Remus laughed, and warmth spread right to the tips of Sirius’s toes. “No, Padfoot, I don’t mean in a friend way.”
“Good,” Sirius said with finality. “Good.”
Another silence fell. It lasted even shorter than the time before. As soon as Sirius glanced up and caught Remus’s eye, the two burst out laughing.
“I don’t really know what to do now,” Sirius admitted when their laughter had died down and they’d both caught their breath.
Remus stuck his hand out across the table and Sirius took it in his own, not hesitating for a second. The angle wasn’t ideal and it would probably hurt his wrist if he stayed like that for too long. Remus’s hand was a little clammy, and Sirius’s probably was too. All of the ink splotches on Remus’s fingertips were probably going to wind up all over Sirius’s hand and on his white uniform shirt. But, despite all of this, or maybe because of it, it was perfect.
“I can probably finish my essay in the morning.”
“I don’t understand how you’re not done yet. Babbling only asked for two feet of parchment. You must have four there, at least.”
Remus rolled his eyes. “What am I supposed to do, not talk about the political climate at the time?”
“Uh, yeah, maybe. Nerd.”
There was another silence, a little more awkward now, as they sat in the empty library, still holding hands across the old mahogany table. Neither of them wanted to let go first, but they both knew that they needed to; they had to pack up their belongings and return to the Gryffindor tower to their beds. The teachers would only be so lenient with them being out of their dorm for study reasons.
Remus eventually pulled his hand back with a soft sigh, sadder now, and Sirius almost snatched it back and held it in his own forever. He watched as Moony stood up and started packing up his quills and ink pots. He’d have to do a quick blotting charm on his essay, they both would, so it wouldn’t smudge when they rolled it up, but Remus always said that air-drying made the ink stay crisper so he usually left rolling up his parchment to the very end of packing up.
Sirius couldn’t help the smile that spread across his face. The boy he loved was such a nerd. A nerd that loved him back, apparently. Wonders never ceased.
“What?” Remus’s lips were quirked in that self-conscious smile of his. Sirius wanted to kiss it. He wondered if he was allowed to now. “Have I had ink on my face this whole time?”
Sirius laughed. “You don’t have ink on your face, Moony. Your face is perfect.” He realised what he’d said and felt his cheeks heat up a little, but he didn’t let himself be embarrassed. “I want to kiss you.”
Remus dropped the inkwell he was holding. It narrowly missed landing on his essay and shattered on the library floor. “Jesus Christ, Sirius. You can’t just say things like that.”
Sirius had no idea who this ‘Jesus Christ’ fellow was, but he supposed he was a sort of muggle Merlin, as Remus and some of the muggleborns said his name a lot.
“Sorry. I thought when you said that you loved me that…” Sirius let the rest of the sentence die on his tongue. He didn’t know how to finish it without sounding more pathetic than he already felt.
“Oh, no, Siri, that’s not. I didn’t. Fuck it.”
And then Remus was pulling him bodily up from his chair and pressing their lips together. It was like holding hands had been; perfect in spite of and because of its imperfections. Their noses had bumped together while Remus was trying to find his mouth. Remus’s lips were chapped and Sirius could feel the scar that ran down the left side of Remus’s mouth against his own lips, which was an odd sensation, but not necessarily bad. Remus’s hands were still clenched tightly in Sirius’s robes, like he was afraid the other boy would run away.
Neither of them deepened the kiss. It was enough, just a press of cold lips together, in semi-darkness but very much in public, where anyone could walk in.
Sirius had kissed a handful of girls before, mostly at James or Peter’s dares or out of obligation when they asked. He’d had their tongues behind his teeth, their hands in his hair or even up his shirt. It was always fine. Just fine. They were nothing special, nothing that got him breathless or hard or even thinking about sex. (He, of course, played up his enjoyment to James and to the other boys, only now realising that that funny look that Remus had, the look he tried to hide, whenever Sirius told of his escapades, was one of hurt and jealousy.) Remus had also kissed a few girls for dares and had dated a Ravenclaw called Mia for a few months last year, but, no matter how much James prodded, Remus never shared how far they’d gone together.
Sirius pulled away and rested his forehead against Remus’s, the world spinning around them. Nothing Sirius had ever experienced had ever been like this. Remus was breathing heavily beneath him. Sirius lifted one hand up and cupped it Remus’s cheek, running his thumb across the scar-littered skin.
“Wow,” Sirius breathed. He wasn’t sure his brain would ever be able to form words again. If this was the aftermath of one short chaste kiss with Remus Lupin, how was he supposed to do anything else with him? Just the thought of Remus’s tongue against his own made Sirius feel like his brain was going to melt out of his ears.
Sirius could feel Remus’s smile under his thumb. “Yeah. I. Yeah.” The idea that Remus was just as turned about by that kiss as Sirius made him feel like he was flying. Remus finally let go of Sirius’s robes and took a step backwards, though it looked like it almost physically pained him to do so. He resumed packing his bag, Sirius watching on in silence, and then stopped, pulling out a half-empty bottle of whiskey that James must have stashed to entice them to abandon their essays and join the revelry.
“We should get back to the Tower. James and Peter’s bash is probably in full swing.”
Sirius rolled his eyes. “There’s nowhere I’d rather be right now, Lupin, than alone with you.”
The tips of Remus’s ears went red and Sirius felt a strong desire to lick them. But Remus didn’t look up. “Aren’t you going to pack up, Padfoot?”
“I really don’t want to go back to the Tower, love.”
“I’m not suggesting that’s where we go. I’m suggesting that we tidy everything away so the library looks empty to anyone walking past, and then make out behind a bookcase.”
Sirius barked out a laugh, startled and delighted. “Moony, you horny devil, I didn’t think you had it in you.”
“Not yet.” And then he winked.
Winked.
At Sirius.
“Fuck, Remus.”
“Yes, that was the implication.” His tone was aloof, dismissive, but there was smirk on his lips and a twinkle in his eye. “Pack up, Padfoot, I’m not kissing you again until the table’s clear.”
Sirius groaned and pulled his bag up off the floor. “Are you going to withhold kisses every time you want something from me, Remus?”
“Would it work?”
“You have no idea what you do to me.”
The sound of Remus’s laugh was a drug to Sirius. He didn’t understand how the whole school wasn’t addicted, but he was also a little glad of that fact.
Remus picked up the pile of library books and, before turning away to return them, pressed a kiss to Sirius’s earlobe.
“I thought you said you weren’t going to do that,” Sirius hoped that Remus couldn’t also hear the quaver in his voice.
“I couldn’t help myself.”
By the time Remus had returned, Sirius was zipping his own bag shut, spurred on by the prospect of kissing Remus again. Remus bent down to repair the broken ink bottle and started syphoning the ink off the floor back into the bottle when Sirius put a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll buy you some more ink, Moonbeam, since it’s my fault you dropped it.”
“You don’t have to.” Sirius knew that money was a sticky topic for the Lupins. Remus never talked about it, but he had spent most of last year putting enlargement charms on his shoes every morning when he thought the other boys weren’t looking.
“I know. I want to. I have to treat the pretty young thing on my arm right.”
“I’m only four months younger than you, prat.” But Sirius could hear the smile in his voice and noticed that he had simply vanished the rest of the ink without bothering to retrieve it. He stood up, crooked nose reaching up to Sirius’s chin. “And I’m not exactly pretty.”
Sirius took Remus’s face in his hands and tilted it upwards slightly so that their eyes met. “Remus Lupin, you are the most beautiful person that I have ever laid my eyes upon.”
“You don’t have to woo me, Black. You know I’d already do anything for you.”
“Anything?” Sirius raised one eyebrow with a cheeky grin.
Remus rolled his eyes, grabbed one of Sirius’s hands and dragged him behind the closest bookshelf.
The boys returned to Gryffindor Tower that night after even the party-goers had gone to bed. They were kiss-stupid and love-drunk and Sirius’s neck was sporting an impressive stubble burn that they both hoped would be gone by morning.
***
Getting Remus alone was harder than Sirius thought. Over the next few days, whenever they weren’t in class, if Sirius didn’t have Quidditch practice, then Remus was on Prefect Duty, or both of them were with the other Marauders working on the Map or planning pranks or doing homework. They didn’t have the excuse of another Ancient Runes essay to escape to solitude. How were a few hours of kissing and whispering in the library supposed to satiate a growing boy?
It all came to a head about a week and a half later, on a Tuesday early evening. Three of the four Marauders were sitting on their own beds, James and Sirius doing homework and Peter reading in a book that Remus had found in the restricted section a few days ago, trying to find a way to plot an unplottable room. The Room of Requirement was one of the only blank parts left on the Map, much to the Marauders’ collective annoyance.
Remus was away doing his prefect rounds which should be over in — Sirius glanced at his watch — about ten minutes. This meant that Sirius had about fifteen minutes of sanity left before Remus Lupin strolled into their room and Sirius’s concentration was shot for the rest of the evening. Ever since their evening in the library, Sirius had found Remus, somehow, to be even more distracting than before. Now, he wasn’t just stealing glances when he thought the other boy wasn’t looking; he was openly staring like a lovesick fool, not caring who spotted him. Best of all were the times that Remus caught him, Sirius wouldn’t be able to stop the grin spreading across his cheeks as he held Remus’s gaze and as a rosy blush crept up Remus’s neck and across his cheeks. It didn’t seem real, to be able to have such a profound effect on him. How had Sirius never noticed before?
Sirius groaned and threw his head down onto his duvet, narrowly missing knocking over his inkwell. Remus wasn’t even back yet and Sirius already couldn’t focus. At this rate, he’d never get any work done again. The smell of the old books covering his bed was enough to jog the memory again (like it hadn’t been front and centre in his mind for the past ten days) and Sirius could almost feel his back pressed uncomfortably against those library shelves, a discomfort he barely noticed because Remus’s lips were on his neck, his hot breaths tickling the sensitive skin.
Sirius hadn’t been this turned on for this long… Ever. If he’d thought he’d had it bad before kissing Moony, this was a whole new world of sexual frustration.
He lifted his head, thankful that the other boys probably assumed that he was just having some run-of-the-mill potions-essay frustrations. If the heat on his cheeks was anything to go by, Sirius’s whole face was tomato-red. He picked up his quill, moved his inkwell to a less precarious position, and started back to work. He glared at the parchment in front of him, trying to make sense of the last sentence he’d written so he could continue with whatever garbage he was spewing onto the scroll. Something about Belladonna… Right. Ok. He could probably write enough for the essay to be passable in the next — another glance at his watch — seven minutes before Remus came back and ruined Sirius’s brain for the night.
He tried to focus. He almost focused. Half of his brain was on the books and essay in front of him, sure, but the other half was concentrating on the dorm-room door, waiting to hear the creak of the third stair that meant that Remus was back. That he was home.
He had actually written two almost decent paragraphs by the time that telltale step groaned under someone’s weight. He looked up so fast that he heard the joints in his neck crack.
There he was. Too short trousers with the pale blue socks (that Sirius had got him as part of his last birthday present) peeking out the bottom, black Hogwarts robe with a dark grey patch on one elbow, grey jumper with his red and gold prefect’s pin on his chest, right over his heart, that little contented smile of successful prefect-ing. Remus Lupin.
Suddenly, it was too much. There was far too much Remus Lupin in the room and far too little in his arms. Unacceptable.
“Get out.” Sirius heard the words as if someone else had said them.
“Pads?” James was looking at him, they all were. Sirius could only see Remus. There was a fear in his eyes, the smile was gone. Remus thought Sirius wanted him gone. No, no, Remus couldn’t leave. He had to know that Sirius would never want him to leave, right?
“Pete and Prongs. Out. Now.” He didn’t even look at them.
“Oi, you can’t just kick us out.” Prongs was indignant, as usual.
Remus’s smile was back, just a little, like he was trying to pull his lips back down and was losing the battle. “I think you should give us the room for an hour or two, James. Prongs and I have something important to discuss.”
“You can’t talk with us here? Or talk in the common room?”
“Unfortunately not. Canine business, you see.” Merlin, Remus was sexy when he was lying on the spot. Sirius wanted to jump him, would jump him, in ten seconds, whether or not the others were still in the room.
Remus’s eyes hadn’t left his. There was a playful sparkle in them now. He must have noticed the hunger in Sirius’s eyes, must be teasing him. Usually, Sirius could give as good as he got. Any other day, he’d have compounded Remus’s dry comment with a witty one-liner. But under that gaze… Sirius was lucky he still remembered how to breathe.
“You two look like you’re going to murder each other,” Wormtail said, closing his book over and climbing out of bed. “You’re not going to murder each other, are you?”
Remus tore his eyes away from Sirius’s and somehow the room got colder. He smiled his most innocent smile at Peter, the one that got him out of trouble nine times out of ten. “Of course not, Wormtail.” He glanced back at Sirius, eyes shining with false naivety. Sirius almost laughed out loud.
“Oh. Ok, then. Come on, James.”
“I don’t see why I should.”
Sirius raised one eyebrow at Remus. Remus nodded back, once.
“James Fleamont Potter. Remus and I are going to spend the next sixty to ninety minutes snogging on his or my bed. I, frankly, don’t care if you’re here or not. You have a minute to leave the room before I start ravaging our best friend. I’m sure that’s something you don’t want to see.”
James’s chin had hit the floor. Peter, still standing by his bed, dropped the book.
Remus swore as the ancient tome hit the floor, kicking up a cloud of dust. “Fuck. Peter, that’s from the Restricted Section, I won’t be able to sneak it back if you damage it.”
James looked at Sirius and then at Remus. “I would have thought you’d have more sense than to go for this guy, Moony, he’s a disaster.”
Remus smiled. “By what standard am I not also a disaster, James?” He shot a wink at Sirius. “Pads is right, though. I think you have maybe forty seconds left before Sirius and I start doing something that I refuse to take responsibility for if it emotionally scars you.”
Had Sirius been standing, his knees would have buckled under him.
Peter picked up the book and scarpered. James looked between them, as if he still wasn’t quite sure if they were joking or not. Remus raised an eyebrow at him and took one step towards Sirius. James visibly gulped and left the room, not even picking up the homework he’d been working on before fleeing.
The door clicked shut and they were alone. Sirius almost flung his potions books onto the floor, only remembering the inkwell just in time to save it from disaster. Remus approached him like a lion stalking his prey.
“I’ve wanted to get you alone all week,” His voice sounded like a growl.
“I know. I might have to stop playing Quidditch if it keeps interfering with our making out time.” Sirius was mostly joking.
Remus was in front of him now, their legs almost touching, looking down at Sirius who was sitting on the edge of his bed. The height difference was nice. Moony looked nice from this angle. Maybe he’d look even better from even lower down…
Remus’s scarred and calloused hand on his jaw pulled him from the thought. “You can’t stop playing Quidditch, Pads. You have no idea how good your arse looks in those robes.” He tilted Sirius’s head up and grazed his lips against Sirius’s. Sirius definitely didn’t whine at the fleeting contact. Remus was still talking, his breath warm and sweet on Sirius’s face. “When you come back from the pitch, before you’ve showered, and you’re covered in sweat, I just want to…”
Remus leant down further and, honest to Merlin, licked a stripe up Sirius’s neck. If any of the girls Sirius had kissed had ever done that, he’d have pushed them away in disgust. But Sirius already knew that his reactions to Remus were breaking all of his usual rules. He let his head fall back, exposing his neck more.
Remus kissed back up Sirius’s neck and bit his earlobe gently. “I stopped coming to games because I kept getting hard seeing your hands wrapped around that bat. Robes only hide so much.” He was whispered directly into Sirius’s ear and the sound travelled at light-speed down to Sirius’s cock.
Sirius pulled Remus down on top of himself, shutting him up by sealing their lips together, properly, finally.
James and Peter didn’t return for three hours. By then, Remus and Sirius were fast asleep, curled up under Sirius’s duvet, naked but for their underpants and an impressive amount of hickeys.